president's address. 151 



Ross' expedition, thus describes Ross' forcing a passage through 

 the ice"^ — 



" He steered for the position of the Magnetic Pole, and, after 

 passing through much loose ice, met the main pack, al)out lat. 67° 

 S. and long. 174|° E. It was a formidable pack. Neither he 

 nor any of the Arctic officers or men, of whom there were not a few 

 in the ships, had ever seen anything like it in the north. Never- 

 theless, Ross determined to try it, and in doing so the boldest 

 held his breath for a space. In four or five days he pushed 

 through it and entered comparatively open water." This proved 

 to be a huge ocean pool 600 miles across, with a magnificent chain 

 of extinct volcanoes, and one active volcano, bounding it on the 

 east, the highest peak. Mount Melbourne, being estimated to be 

 15,000 feet high. The sun often shone brilliantly on those 

 stupendous snow-clad peaks as Ross and his men fought their way 

 gallantly southwards until they reached the great ice barrier 

 rising in a sheer cliff 150 feet to 200 feet above the sea, and 

 barring further progress to the South. On the East the ice pack, 

 composed partly of floe ice (frozen sea water), partly of fragments 

 of icebergs, hemmed them in, and they were compelled to return 

 by the way they came. Speaking of the hardships endured by 

 Ross and his men, during the third year of his commission. Hooker 

 says (op. cit. p. 28), " It was the worst season of the three, one of 

 constant gales, fogs and snowstorms. Officers and men slept with 

 their ears open, listening for the look-out man's cr}^ of ' Berg- 

 ahead !' followed by 'All hands on deck!' The officers of the 

 Terror told me that their commander (Crozier) never slept a night 

 in his cot throughout that season in the ice, and that he j^assed it 

 either on deck or in a chair in his cabin. They were nights of 

 grog and hot coffee, for the orders to splice the main l)race were 

 many and imperative, if the crew ^^ere to be kept up to the strain 

 on their nerves and muscles." 



Ross' dredging showed that animal life was abundant right up 

 to the edge of the great ice barrier; and the observations made 

 during the Challenger Expedition quite confirmed this conclusion, 



* The Geogr. Jouru. Vol. iii. No. 1, January, 1894, p. 27. 



